In my prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,937,459, granted Feb. 10, 1976, there is disclosed a sorting machine for use with copying machines, wherein a sheet transport carries successive sheets in a path extending past a set of pivotal fingers, which are of a nesting construction, and which, when open, provide curved surfaces engageable by an advancing sheet, to pick the sheet off of the transport and direct the sheet into a tray or receiver. The nesting of the fingers provides a smooth guide for the sheet, so that if the sheet tends to curl or flutter off of the transport, the sheet is confined by the guide which is in close proximity and parallel to the transport.
Such a structure has been found to be very efficient for sorting sheets of paper of a range of weights in a sorter structure which can be applied to a variety of copying machines, or in large sheet sorting equipment. However, the incorporation of sheet sorting apparatus in copying machines has resulted in a trend towards designs requiring smaller sorters capable of sorting a large number, say twenty copies of a given original.